Question Hello, I'm looking for resources and advice for educating our daughter who is now nearly 7 months old. My husband and I currently live in the USA but will be moving to Germany when our daughter is 1 1/2 years old. I'm a native English speaker (US). My husband...
Q&A: Minority language at home – what happens when the child starts school in the majority language?
Question My husband and I are Russians but currently leave in England. Both of us use Russian at home, and since we have been in UK for over 10 years, we are fluent in English. We have a small baby and wish our baby to speak both languages. We are not going to place...
Passing on a non-native language to your child, part 3: Activities
The third part in my series on teaching your child a non-native language is all about different language-learning activities that you can do with your kid. So far in the series I have written about the things you need to take into consideration before embarking on...
Q&A: Is saying something in two languages a good way to teach an additional language?
Question Dear Rita and all other Family Languages Coaches, I am Shoko, Japanese, and a mother of a son who is 26 months old. My husband is also Japanese and we reside in Japan. I have lived in the States when I was 6-10 years old, and also again when I was 22-25 years...
Bilingual children and long-distance family relationships
Many bilingual children have at least one side of their extended family living fairly far away, often on the “other side of the world”. Visits are possible perhaps only once a year, or even more seldom if at all, so it is essential to find other ways to connect....
Q&A: Is it too late to teach my children my native language?
Question Hello, I am so glad I found this website, I just realized I did a big disservice to my kids. I am Italian, live in the States, my husband is American, both of our kids were born and raised here, I have lived here for 12 years now. In the beginning I was...
Passing on a non-native language to your child, part 2: Family language strategy
After taking into consideration all the points raised in the first part of this series, you have decided that you want to give your child the gift of another language. My presumption is that you have discussed this with the rest of the family and everybody agrees that...
Passing on a non-native language to your child, part 1: Considerations
One of the most common questions we get to our panel of Family Language Coaches is from parents thinking about teaching their child a language of which the mother and/or father is not a native speaker, and whether this is a good idea. My short answer to this question...
Q&A: Teaching a possibly dyslexic child to read and write in the minority language.
Question I am a Swedish national living in the UK with my husband and 10-year-old daughter. The main language we speak at home is English, and Swedish is the minority language. My husband does not speak Swedish, whereas our daughter speaks it more or less fluently,...
Q&A: For our child, should we maintain a heritage language or go for the easier option?
Question Dear Family Language Coaches, My first son will soon be born and my husband and I have to make the difficult decision which languages to speak with him. I am German and we are living in Germany. So one of his languages will definitely be German. My husband’s...





